The Dominion - West

Sinking Ships

dawn — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:39:32 +0000

Shipwrecks, shellfish and the future of the BC coast

HARTLEY BAY, BC—The two ex-lovers who were at the helm of the BC Ferries ship Queen of the North during a routine overnight sailing from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy six years ago probably didn't expect their first reunion after a two-week separation to end the way it did. Years later, despite a lengthy investigation into what happened that night (with which the ex-lovers refused to co-operate), only the bridge crew on staff know the specific details of the human error that caused a 700-passenger ferry to collide with Gil Island and sink in the early hours of March 22, 2006.

Soon the jagged rocks and narrow channels that consumed the ferry may be an obstacle course for much larger ships, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

If the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal is accepted, tankers will cross the ferry route at Wright Sound, passing the sunken ship as they start up Douglas Channel.

The tankers would carry hundreds of millions of litres of bitumen from Kitimat to China, making the 250,000 litres of diesel on the Queen of the North seem paltry by comparison.

Each tanker is three times the length of the ferry, requiring two kilometres to stop completely. There is far less room for human or technical error. With growing opposition to the gas and oil pipelines proposed to cross BC, a closer look at the Queen of the North incident sheds new light on the dangers of tanker traffic on the wild, rocky coast.

The passengers and crew stranded in the dark, isolated sound on that fateful March night in 2006 were fortunate to be in Gitga’at Nation Territory.

Upon hearing the radioed distress signals, nearly all of the 200 Gitga’at residents of the nearby Hartley Bay leapt out of bed, mobilized every boat in the village and prepared the community centre to accommodate 99 exhausted and traumatized survivors. Their life-saving efforts came well in advance of the arrival of the Coast Guard. Even with this effort, two of the passengers aboard the Queen of the North, Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy, were never found and are presumed dead.

When it sank, the Queen of the North brought hundreds of thousands of litres of diesel, oil and hydraulic fluid down with it. First responders on the scene that night reported that the entire surface of Wright Sound was covered in a film of diesel.

Hartley Bay residents as far as 11 kilometres away reported that they could smell the accident from their homes. The 2007 Queen of the North Monitoring Summary Review, an environmental report commissioned by BC Ferries, found that following the sinking, patches of diesel dotted several hundred square kilometres of ocean surface and may have contacted 100 kilometres of shoreline.

Six years later, community members from Hartley Bay are still dealing with the impacts of the sinking. The ship remains on the ocean floor. Even today, they say, diesel patches are visible when the weather is calm.

“If the Queen of the North had sunk anywhere near Vancouver or Victoria, it would still not be sitting at the bottom of the ocean, leaking contaminants,” said Cameron Hill, a Hartley Bay Band Council member. “There’s no way that would have happened anywhere else. But it’s happening right outside Hartley Bay.”

Hill claims that two days after the sinking, former BC Premier Gordon Campbell and former BC Ferries CEO David Hahn promised the ship would be raised. “At the very least, [they said] they will take out all of the contaminants,” said Hill. “The technology is there to do that. That never happened either. And still to this day it leaks.”

Following analysis from the Canadian Coast Guard and London Offshore Consultants, BC Ferries determined that it was not worth raising the wreck or attempting to remove the diesel. Nobody knows for certain whether all of the diesel was dispersed in the incident, or if some is still trapped in the hull. The Queen of the North remains 430 metres under the ocean.

Removing the diesel floating on the ocean surface also proved to be an insurmountable task.

Diesel is a very light fuel that spreads to less than one millimetre of depth. Without a very calm surface it is difficult to extract. “There was not a heck of a lot that you could do,” said Ernie Hill, one of three Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitga’at. “They had booms out there, but all they could do was redirect it. I think somebody said they collected, maybe ten gallons or something, of actual diesel fuel. But the rest went to the beaches.”

Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, the company contracted by BC Ferries for the cleanup, did not respond to interview requests before this article went to press.

Ernie Hill and others think the diesel is already taking a toll on marine life.

“Unfortunately there were really big tides,” said Hill. “Our major clam beds were just totally below it. We looked at the clams the following year and they were just not good. You know, dark inside and not very much of it. And it drifts up to the high water mark and it affected a lot of our plants there too.”

BC Ferries, a private corporation contracted and legislated by the BC government, promised the region would be restored to a pristine condition and that it would fund a yearly contribution to the Hartley Bay Band to pay for monitoring and testing of marine life in the area. The monitoring included visually inspecting the wreck area to check for leaking fuel as well as sending shellfish to a lab to check for contamination.

BC Ferries paid for monitoring until March 2011, when the company decided it was no longer effective at detecting pollution. The decision to axe the monitoring program occurred the same year that BC Ferries was facing a $20 million budget shortfall, following years of controversy surrounding high executive compensation. The company considers the monitoring unreliable at detecting spills because of factors such as weather conditions, timing of the upwelling, underwater currents and limited time spent on the water.

“The result of this monitoring disclosed extremely minor leakage from the wreck of approximately half a litre of fuel per day or less, which spread and dissipated quickly on the surface without any identified environmental impact,” wrote Deborah Marshall, Executive Director of Public Affairs for BC Ferries, in an email to The Dominion. “Upwelling monitoring did not provide any useful data other than to establish that, over the five-year period, the wreck appeared to be very stable with decreased residual leakage,” she wrote.

The Queen of the North Monitoring Summary Review suggests that the effects of the Queen of the North were short lived. “Local residents have indicated that their food resources are still contaminated, but the science indicates that resources closest to the wreck site were ‘recovered’ by June of 2006 and contaminant levels reached the same level as sites that had not been affected by the spill,” wrote John Harper, who coordinated the monitoring program for BC Ferries, in an email to The Dominion.

Hartley Bay residents, believing there are lingering impacts from the vessel, are now paying for their own visual monitoring. Many residents still won’t eat from certain shellfish beds.

Health Canada has done shellfish testing since BC Ferries ceased doing it, although residents are uncertain how long that will continue. Even if the toxins are at low levels now, without daily monitoring, residents have no way of knowing if an underwater "burp" has unleashed a fresh batch of diesel onto the clam beds.

Ernie Hill takes this contamination very seriously. His peoples’ traditional harvesting grounds hold centuries of cultural significance, and are also a major food source. Their territory is remote; the nearest grocery store is in Prince Rupert, a four-hour ferry ride away. Since goods shipped to the region are expensive, access to local seafood is a matter of survival.

“Any oil spill, anywhere in our territory, that’s the end for us,” said Hill. “Our people would cease to exist, really. We’ll have to move out.”

The Queen of the North isn’t the only abandoned shipwreck in Gitga’at Territory. In 2003, the Coast Guard noticed a mysterious crude oil slick in Grenville Channel that polluted five kilometres of shoreline.

Shortly after the discovery, an underwater robot determined it was the Brigadier General MG Zalinksi, a long-forgotten US armament ship that sank in 1946, approximately 30 kilometres northwest of the ferry’s shipwreck. The Canadian government sent divers down to plug the corroded rivet holes. The quick fix was repeated this spring when more bunker oil was discovered to be leaking.

Although the Zalinski sits under only 27 metres of water, a long-term solution is complicated by the fact that the ship contains at least a dozen 500-pound aerial bombs. The United States government has absolved itself of any responsibility, and the Canadian government has been deliberating on a solution for years.

For now, other ships have simply been warned not to anchor near the site.

The Gitga’at are left hoping for a solution before the 93-year-old ship rusts away, releasing whatever remains of the 700 tonnes of bunker C fuel the ship was carrying. Bunker C is a much denser and more persistent toxin than the diesel released by the ferry. Its consistency and effects are more like the crude that was carried by the Exxon Valdez tanker that crashed in Alaska in 1989.

As unhappy as the Gitga’at are about the abandonment of either shipwreck in their territory, they know they still aren’t dealing with the worst-case scenario.

“The Queen of the North spilled thousands of litres of diesel that impacted our territory,” said Cameron Hill. “In the overall scheme of oil spills, diesel is a pretty light material compared to the crude that’s going to be in these tankers.”

Members of Indigenous communities from Alaska have visited Hartley Bay to share their experiences of the Exxon Valdez. One such community was so badly hit that the people had to be permanently relocated. “Everybody involved knew that there was no way that their territory was ever going to rebound for these people,” said Hill. “They moved them off of every bit of passed-down knowledge that they had ever known about the territory that they were in.”

If industry gets its way, Northern Gateway tankers will carry diluted bitumen, which is much more expensive and difficult to clean up than crude oil. Unlike diesel, bitumen does not evaporate, and unlike diesel or crude, it doesn’t really float. Once it is spilled in water, it separates into a poisonous gas condensate and a dense sticky resin that is too heavy to be caught by surface skimmers. It coats the surrounding wilderness with a persistent toxic sludge.

According to a Canadian Press report, the head of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research, Dr. Kenneth Lee, believes that Enbridge has done insufficient research on the differences between crude oil and bitumen spills.

While the Enbridge bitumen pipeline is heavily contested, construction has already begun to accommodate tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG). Hartley Bay residents are more or less resigned to the LNG tankers, which are slightly smaller than the bitumen tankers and carry different risks. An LNG spill would not coat sea life in a heavy toxic slick, but it can become flammable as it evaporates.

“We’ve been trained by Burrard Clean, that’s an oil cleanup company,” said Marven Robinson, a Hartley Bay Band Council member and part of the marine guardianship program. “They told us, ‘See what you guys did the night the ferries sank? Don’t do it with any of those ships going up to Kitimat.‘ The guy said they’re being paid, for dangerous pay. They said ‘Don’t you guys ever go out to one of these boats. If it’s condensate, don’t go out at all. If anything you might have to move all of the people in the community.’ We said ‘Why?’ and he said ‘Well the condensate is under pressure. And it’s safe while it’s under pressure. But as soon as you take that pressure away it starts to evaporate.’ They said ‘If you guys go to one of these accidents your outboard motors will ignite the condensate.‘”

Unlike BC Ferries, which is controlled by the province, Northern Gateway tankers will be owned by a variety of foreign entities who would be liable for costs of cleanup in the eventuality of an ocean spill. Enbridge is promising to extend its spill response plan to the ocean, though it isn't legally responsible for the oil once it has left the pipeline. Spill costs that exceed $1.3 billion will be on Canadian taxpayers. The 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident resulted in $3.5 billion in cleanup costs and $5 billion in legal and financial settlements.

The historical precedents set by past wrecks have the Gitga’at apprehensive about the future of their territory. Once a ship goes down, it appears it does not come back up. Once a contaminant is in the water, it can’t easily be removed. Long-forgotten wrecks can come back to haunt the living. Parties liable for cleanup, if they accept accountability at all, can unilaterally decide when the work is done. Experienced crews on established routes with sophisticated technology remain vulnerable to human error.

Erin Empey is a Vancouver based writer.

Hartley Bay

Map of routes of Queen of the North & proposed Northern Gateway

Food Sovereignty on the Menu at Traditional Foods Conference

Sandra — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:41:13 +0000

trad foods thumbnail 1.png

TSESHAHT FIRST NATION—Traditional diet, harvesting rights, seafood contaminants and community health were all on the menu at the 5th Annual Traditional Foods Conference on Vancouver Island. Jointly hosted in Port Alberni on September 28 and 29 by the Tseshaht First Nation and the Nuu chah nulth Tribal Council, the free conference was themed "Feeding Our Future Generations." A space to promote and encourage traditional foods and food practices, the annual event has always focused on four pillars: nutrition, healing, safety and community. This year, sustainability was added as a fifth pillar.

This video was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op. Isaac K. Oommen is a freelance journalist and academic researcher based in the Unceded Coast Salish Territories.

The Cornerstone of Gentrification in the Downtown East Side

taramichelle — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:00:12 +0000

From the Woodward squat ten years ago, to a displaced neighbourhood

VANCOUVER—Towering 43 storeys at the corner of Abbott and Hastings Streets, in the poorest neighbourhood in Vancouver—the Downtown East Side (DTES)—sits the new Woodwards.

The $400 million project, launched by the City of Vancouver, is a mixture of market and social housing, commercial stores, offices, a public atrium, part of Simon Fraser University's (SFU) downtown campus and a community space. It takes up three quarters of the block, or 1,222,230 square feet.

The block looked very different on September 14, 2002, when a number of people from the DTES and their allies occupied the then-abandoned Woodwards department store in a bid to have the site made into social housing.

“There was gentrification happening all around the world and we saw it coming,” said Shawn Millar, who broke into the Woodwards building with around 60 other people to begin the occupation. “The saying was, 'As Woodwards goes, so goes the neighbourhood.'”

On September 21, police arrested 54 squatters and sealed the building, only to see them return the next day and set up a tent city on the sidewalk. Their numbers swelled to 150 as homeless people and their allies set up camp.

Police later arrested tenters and City workers disposed of their belongings in garbage trucks. The City promised temporary housing for squatters, as well as room in the future Woodwards social housing project.

According to Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP, an organization that advocates on DTES housing, income and land issues), co-ordinator Jean Swanson, there was no mention at that time of having condominiums at the site.

"At the last minute developers put in two condo towers,” said Swanson. “They said the rich needed to be there in order to make the project pay. Instead the area around Woodwards became a zone of exclusion.”

“Thirty per cent of the Woodwards is social housing, but only 15 per cent is actual welfare-rate social housing that were part of the original demands,” said Ivan Drury, a researcher for CCAP. “A good part of the project is supportive social housing, which is not in accordance with the Residential Tenancy Act and so can be run with immunity.”

Commercial space in Woodwards was offered a ten-year tax break as an encouragement to set up in the neighbourhood, which was deemed to be a high-crime area. Shops such as Nester's Market and London Drugs changed the space by policing it with private security.

“[When you go in there] you're treated like a thief,” said Millar. “They have a sign: 'Where The Community Shops.' It's not where the community shops. The community is not welcome there.”

The September 15 sixth annual Women's Housing March, organized by the DTES-based Power of Women group, called out many high-end cafes and other shops that are now taking over the DTES for making the neighbourhood unwelcome to low-income people. This pattern of gentrification began with the stores situated in Woodwards.

In September 2010, SFU moved its School for Contemporary Arts from its Burnaby campus to Woodwards, into what became the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

“We were concerned about the naming of the building because it's alleged that Goldcorp mining in Latin America is pursuing an environmentally and socially destructive policy,” said Dr. Ian Angus, a Professor of Humanities at SFU who was part of a faculty group that took these concerns to the university president. “Naming the school this way connects SFU to corporate practices that have come under widespread criticism.”

Despite student protests that called for an end to the association between SFU and the mining company, SFU has yet to address concerns about Goldcorp's $10 million donation to the university.

After the City of Vancouver paid $50 million of the $70 million price tag on the Centre for the Arts, SFU was left to raise the rest through private donations. Half of Goldcorp's donation went towards paying for the construction of the Centre, while the rest was earmarked for cultural programs. SFU Woodwards hosts events and talks as part of its community mandate.

“It's disgusting because Goldcorp has demonstrated itself to be abusive,” said Christopher Pavsek, Assistant Professor of Film with the School for Contemporary Arts. “It puts to lie anything SFU has said about caring about human rights.”

Woodwards developers' major concession with regard to the DTES neighbourhood, other than fractional social housing, was a community space. A call was put to community groups to to create this space. Of four main groups that attended these consultations, three pulled out and left just one to take the space. The group, known at the time as Creative Technology, became W2 Community Media Arts.

“The place was designed to fool,” said Jim Carrico, who represented one of the many smaller organizations making up the community groups involved with the consultations. “The whole building was designed to not have real mixing. It was built into the architecture. For us, the main floor was off-limits. We were given a smaller space. It was not about helping the groups involved. [The groups] had to come up with the money to finish the space.”

As a result of this perceived exclusion, Carrico left the consultations.

W2 has burgeoned into a number of projects including a cafe, meeting space, arts society and radio show on Co-op Radio. It has also become a controversial space because of its existence in the DTES.

“We had fundraising events to keep W2 running,” said Donna Chen, the organization's former Volunteer Co-ordinator. “We had majority middle-class white males partying in the DTES. How much is this befitting of W2's mission and mandate?”

Strategies like this have had repercussions from the DTES community.

“I don't trust [W2's] motives,” said Lyn Highway, who has worked with a number of social services organizations in the DTES. “I still to this day boycott them. They're in the cornerstone of gentrification in the DTES...They're so eager and willing to participate in that and be at the forefront of its community acceptance.”

Ten years after the squat, the Woodwards building has lived up to its promise of mixing in a different way. It combines housing, commercial space and education, under the guise of community benefit via social housing and a media space.

“What we really need is for the social housing programs to be restored,” said Swanson. “We need self-contained housing with enough space to think that is resident-controlled. The City needs to slow down gentrification and stop pushing low-income people out of the DTES.”

Isaac K. Oommen is a freelance journalist and academic researcher based in the Unceded Coast Salish Territories. Murray Bush is a Vancouver-based photographer and regular contributor to the Vancouver Media Co-op.

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First Nations paddle to protect Salish Sea from pipeline plan

Miles — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:24:17 +0000

WHEY-AH-WICHEN (CATES PARK, NORTH VANCOUVER)—On September 1, a dozen First Nations canoes paddled past the the Kinder Morgan crude oil pipeline facility in Burrard Inlet. Tsleil Waututh and Squamish paddlers were joined by other First Nations from as far away as Washington State and Vancouver Island in the ceremonial trip. The Nations later signed a declaration to protect the Salish Sea from Kinder Morgan's proposal to double its pipeline capacity to the facility.

The proposed $5 billion project would push crude oil capacity to 850,000 barrels a day from the current 300,000, which would in turn stand to bring more, and bigger, tankers to Vancouver waters.

Leader after leader called for a united effort to protect the coast under the banner of "Many People—One Canoe."

Canoes Arrive at Whey-Ah-Wichen

Waiting for welcome protocols at Whey-Ah-Wichen

Canoes arrive at Whey-Ah-Wichen - Kinder Morgan pipeline facility in background

Canoes arrive at Whey-Ah-Wichen - II

Leaders sign declaration to protect the Salish sea

Canoes arrive at Whey-Ah-Wichen - III

Canoes arrive at Whey-Ah-Wichen - IV

Welcoming committee on shore

Leaders call for solidarity

Leaders call for solidarity to protect the Salish sea

Leaders call for solidarity to protect the Salish sea - II

Protect the Salish sea!

Action Camp Blocks Pipeline

Sandra — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:08:50 +0000

Pacific Trails line would help clear the path for Northern Gateway line from the tar sands

action camp screenshot.jpg

UNIS'TOT'EN TERRITORY—Indigenous resistance to oil and gas pipelines rages on in northern BC. The Unis'tot'en, a clan of the Wet'suet'en Nation, have built a protection camp to block the Pacific Trails Pipeline. For the third time, they called for a convergence in their unceded territories.

This year's camp attracted over 150 people who came from as far east as Montreal and as far south as Florida. The camp organizers reached out to grassroots, community based allies, opting not to tap large environmental NGO's for material support.

Out of the proposed pipeline projects that would cross through Unis'tot'en land, Pacific Trails is the first one slated to begin construction and poses an immediate threat. The natural gas transport project is owned by a partnership between Apache Canada, EOG Resources—formerly Enron Oil and Gas—and Encana. The 463 kilometre PTP pipeline would connect the Spectra Energy Westcoast Pipeline in northeastern BC to a liquified natural gas port on the Pacific Coast, with the aim of transporting gas extracted through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to overseas markets.

The much talked about Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline proposed for the transportation of tar sands oil to the west coast would be built side-by-side the PTP.

"Green Bitumen?!"

Sandra — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:39:24 +0000

Nuclear reactors in the tar sands

SASKATOON—What do you get when you cross a nuclear reactor with a hydraulic shovel-full of tar sands? The answer, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, is "Green Bitumen."

The brainchild of the nuclear industry, this novel concept of deploying small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) to replace natural gas is being sold as a solution to the tar sands' reputation for producing the largest carbon footprint on the planet. Nuclear is being touted as an environmentally friendly, "clean" energy source for the extraction process. But in order to make that claim, one must overlook the substantial carbon emissions in the nuclear "fuel cycle," from mining to ultimate disposal; the risks of weapons proliferation; the toxic radioactive footprint; and the legacy of highly radioactive waste left behind for many generations to come.

Several key players have expressed interest in deploying nuclear reactors in the tar sands, including: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a federal Crown corporation; SNC Lavalin Nuclear and its subsidiary Candu Energy Inc.; Bruce Power, one of Ontario's largest nuclear power generators and its parent company Cameco, the world's largest supplier of uranium; Toshiba, builder of the Fukushima Daiichi 3 power plant; Westinghouse; Aitel; Gen 4 (formerly Hyperion); and General Atomics. The governments of Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan have at times all actively promoted this agenda. Also involved is the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a major US Department of Energy nuclear research facility.

The nuclear industry, government and academia are pitching "Green Bitumen" to the tar sands industry and anyone else who will listen. Dr. Warren Bell, founding president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, sees wide and grave implications for the environment and public health should this message resonate with its target audience.

"The federal and provincial governments are intent on tying the tar sands to nuclear power. Their forlorn hope is that the putative 'greenness' of the latter will counteract the overwhelming 'blackness' of the former," Dr. Bell told The Dominion.

Nuclear reactors have been proposed for three different functions in the tar sands. They could produce high-pressure steam to heat up the underground deposits, inducing bitumen flow from Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) mines. They could supply electricity to the mines. And they could generate electricity to produce hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is used to "upgrade" bitumen into a product similar to conventional crude oil.

But attention is currently focused principally on high pressure steam production. Single-mine electricity requirements are too small to justify reactor purchase, and current hydrogen production methods—from natural gas—are much cheaper. Since the high reactor temperatures required for high pressure steam production exclude conventional designs, the nuclear industry will look to universities for taxpayer-subsidized research and development based on as-yet unproven, "fourth generation" SMR designs.

A reactor would serve one tar sands mining complex, producing at most 30,000 barrels/day; a 375MW-thermal reactor would provide sufficient steam. The same size of reactor would be rated at about 150MW if used to generate electricity, with the other 225MW lost to the atmosphere. For comparison, modern full-size reactors generate 1000 to 1500MW.

The first sign of a concerted effort towards nuclear reactors in the tar sands came in 2006, when the Alberta Energy Research Institute, the energy-technology arm of the provincial government, announced plans to participate in a study with the industry to define nuclear options for the tar sands. This was followed by a private presentation by AECL and Energy Alberta Corporation—a company later linked to Ontario's Bruce Power—to the provincial Conservative caucus in 2007. Two days later, the Alberta Conservative convention passed a resolution to explore using nuclear power plants to assist oil sands development.

In 2008, the provincial government established the Alberta Nuclear Power Expert Panel to study the proposals. Three of its four members were drawn from the oil and nuclear industries. In 2007, with support from their federal counterparts, provincial government officials had already entered into discussions with the Idaho National Laboratory and had reached an agreement to study ways to use nuclear energy in Alberta's oil and gas industry.

The Peace River Environmental Society and other concerned citizens began an intensive public campaign to resist Bruce Power’s application to build a large-scale nuclear reactor in Peace River country, in north-western Alberta. They argued that the application and review process was riddled with a lack of transparency and integrity, undermining its credibility.

"It's a sad commentary on our society when government institutions meant to protect and inform us become puppets of the industries that harm us. Their obstruction of the truth compromised the best interests of Albertans for the benefit of an industry that has created massive debt and contamination for Canadians for the past forty years," Peace River anti-nuclear activist Pat McNamara told The Dominion in an interview.

Faced with effective public opposition, Bruce Power finally withdrew its application in December 2011. But by then the focus had already moved on to Saskatchewan.

Even before the election of his Saskatchewan Party government in 2007, Brad Wall had decided to embrace a nuclear future. "Small reactor technology is coming on fast and may present an opportunity for our province to develop our oil sands in an environmentally responsible way as the new technology produces much-needed steam as well as energy," Wall said in May 2007, six months before his election as Premier, according to a Saskatchewan Party Caucus news release. In 2008, Bruce Power made a pitch to SaskPower, a provincial Crown corporation, extolling the benefits of a large-scale nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan, with the potential to export electricity to the Alberta tar sands and beyond.

The Uranium Development Partnership, a Saskatchewan review panel comprising university and industry representatives, was keen on moving the nuclear agenda forward. Its report with 20 recommendations to "revitalize and capture growth opportunities across the uranium value chain" was released in April 2009 and followed by a public consultation process over the summer months. Just as had happened in Alberta, the Saskatchewan government had already signed an agreement with the Idaho National Laboratory, in March 2009. According to a Saskatchewan government news release, the Memorandum of Understanding would provide "a mechanism for the government and INL to consider research and demonstration projects on a variety of energy sources and resources, including uranium, nuclear energy, heavy oil, oil shale and oil sands."

Public reaction and opposition to the nuclear proposals was swift. The Saskatchewan government ultimately had to retreat from the Bruce Power proposal, but then pursued a different strategy from Alberta. Public funds were made available for nuclear research and development at the University of Saskatchewan. Largely outside public purview, and in close collaboration with the University administration, the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) was established in 2011 with $30 million of government seed money, as was reported in Briarpatch earlier this year. In the CCNI Business Framework, the government establishes that CCNI must meet expectations for nuclear industry enhancement over the next seven years. In a linked move, the Hitachi business group was also funded to conduct "research into the design and feasibility of small reactor technologies," according to a 2011 Saskatchewan government news release.

In the short-term, nuclear reactors cannot compete with natural gas in the tar sands, but there is much dispute over the extent of gas reserves, adding uncertainty to plans for rapid gas-fuelled tar sands expansion. Industry experts worry that by 2030 there might not be sufficient natural gas to fulfil requirements, according to a 2006 Oil Sands Experts Group Workshop report by Len Flint. Studies continue to explore just when nuclear might become a viable option.

Irrespective of the economics, environmental journalist Andrew Nikiforuk told The Dominion that using nuclear power to produce bitumen is an absurd plan. "It's an insult to basic energetics and thermodynamics," he said.

This is not the nuclear industry's only target. In Saskatchewan, rapid, minimally regulated expansion of the oil, gas and potash industries will massively increase electricity consumption. SaskPower forecasts an 83 per cent increase in heavy industry's consumption by 2019, with 3750MW of new generating capacity required by 2033, citing nuclear as a long-term option, post-2023. SaskPower's grid management methodology would favour smaller (200 to 300MW), modular applications of existing reactor types. Hitachi has proposed to adapt a small conventional reactor design under the Saskatchewan agreement.

It is also important to recognize that the conventional power industry—nuclear, fossil fuels, pipelines and electricity—is becoming increasingly integrated. Along with Cameco and BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust, TransCanada Corporation is a one-third owner of Bruce Power. Its proposed Keystone XL pipeline represents an important synchronicity of investment between oil and nuclear expansion. SNC Lavalin is already active in the tar sands, and dovetailing that business with their Candu nuclear interests could be a next step. SNC Lavalin now also owns AltaLink, the private electrical company operating most of Alberta’s electrical grid. Planned and existing tie lines into Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Montana will enhance that export capacity.

Some argue that the Western Energy Corridor proposal, designed to export electricity across the border into the United States, is an even bigger opportunity for nuclear expansion in Alberta and Saskatchewan. This explains the keen interest of the Idaho National Laboratory in collaborating with government and industry in Canada. INL sees potential for nuclear reactors in western Canada to fulfil future U.S. energy demand. It is not, however, clear how any nuclear reactor could be built without public subsidy.

But the tar sands, perched atop the federal agenda, remain a much-desired prize. SMRs constitute one of very few technologies that tar sands corporations can use to misleadingly promise a smaller future carbon footprint. Even if ultimately non-viable, the argument serves to promote continued rapid expansion of tar sands extraction.

While European countries such as Denmark and Germany are increasingly moving to a renewables-based future, few North American utility and grid management companies are working to overcome the technical challenges involved in making that transition. Unless this changes, many regions are left with a choice between coal, gas and nuclear. The high greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels provide the nuclear industry with an opportunity to promote itself and revive its flagging fortunes despite its prohibitively high price tags.

David Geary, an anti-nuclear activist in Saskatchewan, says there can be no "Green Bitumen" in an environmentally sustainable future.

"Nuclear energy is not clean or green – it uses up huge amounts of fresh water, routinely spews out numerous pollutants and carcinogens into the air and water, and leaves behind a legacy of highly toxic, long-lived wastes," he told The Dominion.

Time will tell whether the organized struggles against well-funded vested interests in western Canada will overcome the proposed publicly-subsidized proliferation of small nuclear reactors in the tar sands or anywhere else. The battle between truly sustainable energy options and the "Green Bitumen" of the conventional energy industry continues.

D'Arcy Hande is a retired archivist and historian, living in Saskatoon. Dr Mark Bigland-Pritchard is a Saskatoon-based applied physicist working as a sustainable energy and green building consultant.

Green Bitumen?!

BC Treaty Advocate Elected Chair of UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Tim McSorley — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:14:27 +0000

Grand Chief Edward John has spent the past 20 years in the BC treaty process, which produces extinguishment Agreements

The 11th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the top forum for Indigenous peoples in the world, began with a lurch. The sixteen-member Forum elected, by acclamation, Grand Chief Edward John to be their Chair. The announcement was made during a preliminary meeting, May 6, 2012, before the two-week meeting in New York City. Hailing from Tl'azt'en (northern BC), this Chief will be familiar to anyone who has followed the machinations of the BC treaty process over the last twenty years: John was the founding Chair of the First Nations Summit, an organization formed to “represent First Nations” involved with the BC Treaty Commission (BCTC).

Perhaps, in 1992, the election of a man affiliated with this Summit to Chair the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues—understood to be advancing the cause of self-determination, land rights and everything else contained in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, would not be an obvious contradiction in terms. However, twenty years later, after the ratification of two extinguishment treaties in that process, this election must be a point of confusion.

When Nisga’a ratified an agreement with British Columbia and Canada in 2000, they released the Nisga’a claim to 100 per cent of their traditional territory in exchange for about 8 per cent of the land back, in Fee Simple Title and with BC holding the underlying title. There were no alarm bells rung by Chief John. Every First Nation in BC was watching that process very closely, as they believed, rightly, that future negotiations in the BC treaty process would follow the Nisga’a template.

When, in 2007, Tsawwassen became the first Indigenous people to ratify a Final Agreement produced in the BC Treaty Commission, the text of that document stated:

Tsawwassen First Nation releases Canada, British Columbia and all other persons from all claims, demands, actions, or proceedings, of whatever kind, and whether known or unknown, that the Tsawwassen First Nation ever had, now has or may have in the future, relating to or arising from any act, or omission, before the effective date that may have affected or infringed any aboriginal rights, including aboriginal title, in Canada of the Tsawwassen First Nation.

This clause is also to be found in the Nisga’a Agreement. It is a surrender, rather than the basis of continuing nation-to-nation relations. Tsawwassen made these concessions for a settlement of less than 1 per cent of their traditional territory, held in Fee Simple. The total cash value of the deal was $33.6 million plus self-government funding of $2.9 million annually over the first five years of the treaty—according to government press releases.

Perhaps Chief John takes a leaf out of then-Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl’s book, who declared at the time, “Who am I to say if it’s a good deal or not?”

John is still the Chair of the First Nations Summit today.

Maa-nulth agreed to the same releases when it ratified a Final Agreement in this process later in 2007. Other identical provisions in all three Agreements include the release of Indian Status, including tax-free status; the “modification” (extinguishment) of their aboriginal rights to be only those rights exhaustively defined in the Agreements, the dissolution of the Indian Band and the termination of Indian Reserve lands. “Fee Simple Lands are not 'lands reserved for the Indians' within the meaning of the Constitution Act, 1867, and are not 'reserves' as defined in the Indian Act.”

The role of the First Nations Summit in these “negotiations” is, in part, to give advice to the federal government for the allocation of treaty negotiating loans to First Nations for the purpose of developing and ratifying Final Agreements under the BC Treaty Commission. These negotiating allowances average a million dollars a year and the 80 per cent which is a loan comes due the moment a First Nation leaves the process or begins implementation of their Final Agreement.

Staying at the table is an offer most First Nations cannot afford to refuse, especially for those who have been at it since 1993, but the only alternative is to ratify an Agreement and extinguish title. Treaty negotiating loans are not included in government audits of First Nations accounts—perhaps because such a loan would immediately place that community in third party remedial management.

Chief John has stayed with the process throughout and failed to take any meaningful action to indicate his disapproval of the situation, if he does indeed disapprove. He obviously hasn’t resigned in protest.

Self-determination, recently enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, goes out with ratification of these Agreements as well, replaced by what the governments, the Treaty Commission and the First Nations Summit call “self-government”–powers which amount to little more than municipal business under the heavily qualified “Governance” chapters. The presence in each Final Agreement of identical chapters, which circumscribe any exercise of self-determination, betrays a theme, one which previous leaders dubbed “the BCTC Death Row.”

According to Chief Negotiator Robert Morales, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, in 2007, “there is one negotiation going on at 47 tables. These were to be government-to-government negotiations, but that’s not how it turned out.”

By 2006, the First Nations Unity Protocol Agreement included all but one of the treaty-going groups in the province, and had made clear the flaws in the process. Morales said, while Chair of the First Nations Summit Chief Negotiators’ table at the time, “The experience we’re having at the Tables and in meetings is that government comes to every table with the same language, with one approach, whether the Nation is small or large, urban or rural. We have realized that we can’t change those policies on our own, even at my table where 6,000 people are represented.”

Since Morales’ statements, letters and FNUPA actions—which included blockading a Nanaimo ferry sailing with canoes—the HTG has been in abeyance from the negotiating table and entered a petition describing the exhaustion of domestic remedies within Canada to resolve the outstanding land title issue. That petition was heard in Washington last year by the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the outcomes of which has not yet been announced.

At the Opening Ceremonies of the PFII 11th Session at UN Headquarters, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro noted in her address, “…we don’t have to go far to see examples of Indigenous peoples facing discrimination, even extinguishment.” As she spoke, Chief John was sitting in front of her.

On the second day of the meeting, an intervention by the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus delivered by Steven Newcomb claimed that, “Negotiations such as in Canada under the Comprehensive Claims Policy… lead to the extinguishment of Indigenous peoples.”

The CCP is the basic platform of the BC negotiations, in direct contrast with the 19 Recommendations by the BC Task Force forming the terms of reference or guidelines for the process in 1992. Those guidelines attracted people to the process because they said, in sum, that the government would be open to all types of discussion and conclusions that would lead to real, workable treaties.

Several independent members of First Nations involved in the treaty process have taken their concerns to an urgent action committee of the United Nations’ Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in 2009. In reports on Canada’s human rights record regarding Indigenous peoples the CERD has criticized the process, such as in 2007, when they wrote:

While acknowledging the information that the “cede, release and surrender” approach to Aboriginal land titles has been abandoned by the State party (Canada) in favour of “modification” and “non-assertion” approaches, the Committee remains concerned about the lack of perceptible difference in results of these new approaches in comparison to the previous approach.

To date, only four Final Agreements have resulted from the negotiating process implemented by the BC Treaty Commission, one rejected in the community ratification vote, one awaiting federal approval and two in implementation—but all of them leading to the extinguishment of title of the Indigenous nations concerned.

Aside from these, the negotiation process in BC remains stalled largely due to the evident desire of the governments to pursue policies of extinguishment of Indigenous sovereignty rights and the equally evident desire of the BC Indigenous nations to resist this demand. But they cannot leave the process without triggering the maturation of the negotiating loan.

While Chief John and the Summit Executive exchange polite letters and press releases with Canadian government officials conducting studies on the BC treaty process and welcoming “recommendations which outline how the federal government can accelerate treaty negotiations in BC” (First Nations Summit Press Release: May 4, 2012) the cost of remaining in the process grows—and the process remains one of municipalization of Indigenous nations which currently have the internationally recognized right to self-determination and demonstrable title to their territories.

Sliammon First Nation is about to go to a ratification vote this summer.

Jackie MukSamma Timothy, a Sliammon Hereditary Chief, wrote of the situation:

So called "Canada's” ignorance of our existing and affirmed Title and Rights and the threat of limited financial support for non-participating Nations forced my people into entering the treaty process. And they keep us on the negotiation table, by threatening to demand all the negotiation funds back at once or to limit our financial support by the federal government accordingly. For my Nation it is impossible to pay the amount back or to forgo financial aid. Moreover, the longer the process takes the more power shifts to the benefit of so called “Canada” and “BC”, because in the end any agreement resulting in any kind of payment is better than none, given the fact that we have to pay the loans back. Loans that would not even be necessary without Canada's wrong-doings and their ignorance of our existing Title and Rights.

The number of irregularities in the BC treaty process is staggering and climbing. It is not unusual for communities to fail to hold a vote annually in order to approve continued borrowing for negotiation funding, or to have votes against continuing the loans ignored, according to vocal Indigenous dissidents. Hereditary Chief Kakila, Tenas Lake, wrote in a letter to the BC Treaty Commission from 2007:

We are advised by the Honourable Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Jim Prentice that these twelve people (the IN-SHUCK-ch Treaty Society) have since 1993 borrowed $9,717,059.00 to engage in these negotiations. We remind that those are the debts of those people alone. In fact, on October 15, 1994, at a duly convened Samahquam General Assembly, for said purpose, the membership specifically voted, by majority, “no” to any proposed Loan Agreements emanating from the British Columbia Treaty Commission.

Most of the original nineteen recommendations of the British Columbia Task Force, which were agreed on by the three negotiating parties forming the BC treaty process, have long since been abandoned. For example, every Final Agreement produced has been taken to court by neighbouring nations for failure to resolve “overlap” claims. Most negotiations currently underway were initiated by a small minority of community members, over whom the rest of the people in these communities cannot regain control. Court actions such as Spookw v.Gitxsan Treaty Society et al, 2011, and the recent blockade by members of the Gitxsan against the Gitxsan Treaty Society show how serious this flaw is. By insisting that the small, mostly isolated communities are “autonomous” in their dealings with the treaty process, the First Nations Summit has absolved itself of any responsibility for those First Nations, which it claims to represent.

Both the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth Final Agreements were ratified in votes where "public relations crisis-management" firms were hired by the government to produce pro-treaty propaganda, and where treaty negotiating teams promoted only those prominent community members who endorsed the Final Agreement and where immediate fiscal rewards for a "yes" vote were offered to community members.

Bertha Williams, a Tsawwassen Member, wrote in a letter to Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, July 23, 2007:

I would like to reference some very key items that raise very serious question about the legitimacy of this vote. Under “Members Benefits” two cash incentives to voters are stated.“ In particular it states that “each elder over 60 will receive $15,000, shortly after ratification day” and “approximately $1,000 per member on Effective Date.” I feel that these cash incentive are a bribe to vote YES to the Final Agreement. These are the cash guarantees that are written right into the agreement and that are openly promoted, but I know that there are additional monies paid out just to get people to vote on this agreement. As already set out above, the vote will take place without meeting basic requirements for such a fundamental, constitutional vote.

People are not informed about the real content of the agreement they are voting on, but rather the provincial government is paying for the preparation of propaganda material that points to the few mainly cash incentives of the agreement, but fails to point out all the downfalls, such as the extinguishment of our Aboriginal Title to our territories, the loss of the tax exemption and the long-term loss of programs and services that will all result in the further impoverishment of our people.

Many feel that, as a lawyer whose organization gives advice on the allocation of negotiating loans, Chief John is and was aware of how the loan process itself would leave small and isolated communities trapped between descending into a deeper cycle of debt the longer they stuck to their negotiating claims, or acceding to the extinguishment terms offered by Canada, which can afford to wait the process out. This message has been clearly and repeatedly delivered to the Executive of the First Nations Summit by such groups as the First Nations Unity Protocol, starting as early as 2006.

Still Chief John is considered respectable. Earlier this year he received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award and is on the Board of Cultural Survival, an international agency which claims to, "publicize Indigenous Peoples' issues through our award-winning publications; mount letter-writing campaigns and other advocacy efforts to stop environmental destruction and abuses of Native Peoples' rights; and we work on the ground in Indigenous communities, always at their invitation."

Most of the Indigenous nations whose territories lie within the Canadian Province of British Columbia have no treaties with Canada.

The recent appearance of Edward John on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network to state that he does not support extinguishment is not an adequate gesture, when read together with his continued involvement, as Chair of the First Nations Summit, in this well-documented extinguishment process.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues sends the world a mixed message in its choice of Chair, when considering its stated mandate. Perhaps the message will become clear when the Permanent Forum reports its recommendations, which will be received by the UN Economic and Social Council to advise member states on Indigenous peoples’ rights the world over.

Kerry Coast is a writer and journalist with a special interest in gaining a legitimate passport. Born beyond the treaty frontier in what is now known as "British Columbia," Coast is first concerned with international recognition of the fact of indigenous title in some thirty indigenous nations which have been occupied by a renegade colony. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Grand Chief Edward John

BC Government Weighs in on Musqueam graves

Tim McSorley — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:37:10 +0000

BC orders halt to construction on intact burials

c̓əsnaʔəm—The province of British Columbia has finally weighed in on the protection of the sacred Musqueam grave site dug up by a condo developer in South Vancouver. But the BC Liberals didn't bother telling the Musqueam.

After more than two months of protests at the site, late last week the provincial government ordered construction permanently halted at the spot where intact burials were discovered. A permit amended by the province orders developer Lan Pro Holdings to return the immediate area where the graves were desecrated to close to their "original condition." It does not refer to the rest of the Marpole Midden, where the condo site is located.

The permit change was announced Friday, but the Musqueam only found out through the media.

"We had no idea until the media calls started pouring in for a reaction. They didn't`t tell any of us, not even the band office. We never did get the press release they sent to everyone else," says Mary Point, who has been active at the site demonstration.

Point says the order is a start, but covers a small part of the development site.

"We need to protect the entire site," she says, adding that it makes no sense to protect one small part but not the entire burial grounds.

The Musqueam have continuously occupied the Midden village for more than 4,000 years. The Musqueam have been trying to negotiate a land swap with the developer since the first graves were disturbed in April.

The province, the city, the developer and the First Nation are now scheduled to meet Tuesday to try to move negotiations along.

Murray Bush is a Vancouver-based photographer and regular contributor to the Vancouver Media Co-op, where a version of this article was originally published.

Ongoing Musqueam protest to protect ancient village and burial site, Vancouver, June 2012.

Flawed Process, Flawed Project

dawn — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:17:31 +0000

Controversy flows on the Northern Gateway pipeline and Canada’s oil economy

VANCOUVER—Since January, the federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) has been touring Alberta and BC, accepting public statements on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway project. The controversial pipeline would carry tar sands bitumen and chemical condensate from Alberta to the BC coast.

Although some observers are encouraged by the JRP and opportunity for open dialogue on the pipeline, many First Nations, legal experts and environmentalists say the review process and the project itself are deeply flawed.

"We think there's significant problems with the way the federal government has carried out its consultation," said Josh Paterson, legal counsel with West Coast Environmental Law.

"The JRP process itself has no authority to look at the impacts on First Nations rights and title that would be caused by this project. The federal government still has the duty to consult with First Nations regardless of what this panel does, and so far they haven’t shown that they're willing to have very serious discussions about the Enbridge issue or the impacts on rights and title."

If the pipeline is approved, Paterson predicts there will be legal challenges from multiple First Nations, who have already stated they would contest the federal government's failure to carry out constitutionally-required consultations. Paterson also said that those cases will likely go to the Supreme Court of Canada, although it's hard to predict how the court would rule.

There has been a record number of registrants to give oral statements to the JRP, more than 4,000, and a strong negative response against the pipeline in many communities. Nevertheless, the Canadian government has openly, and some say undemocratically, favoured the project during the regulatory process, calling it "in the national interest."

Paterson notes that the Harper government is attempting to give the federal Cabinet the final say on all future pipeline projects, instead of the National Energy Board (NEB). Currently, the JRP is considered an independent body and offers a recommendation to the NEB, which then rules on whether or not the project is in the public interest. The NEB is an independent federal agency; its funding comes from government, but 90% of costs recovered from industry.

Canada's regulatory process is already heavily influenced by industry, critics say, and giving Cabinet members the final say on projects rejected by the NEB puts more power into the hands of industry-friendly politicians, rather than an independent third party.

The proposed pipeline and resulting increase in oil tanker traffic on the west coast, along with a "streamlined" environmental review process, has experts declaring that a broad new discussion is needed on industry's relationship with government.

"Environmental Law is really being gutted and environmental protections... are just being erased in order to accelerate approvals of pipeline projects like Enbridge and we think that's really problematic," said Paterson. "We think that’s going to result in a legacy of poor decisions being made and that's going to affect Canadians well into the future."

Resource exploitation by large corporations on Canadian soil is nothing new and has been around since the country was founded, including the operations of the Hudson's Bay and North West companies. Environmental groups are saying the fight is more important than ever, with politicians pandering to Asian and other markets to sell Canada’s resources, while failing to deal with a number of fundamental issues.

"Obviously this is a pretty large-scale fight," said Ben West, campaigner for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. "We're talking about some of the wealthiest corporations in the history of industrial civilization. Increasingly we've seen our leaders from Canada... going to Asia and trying to make the case that this is a safe place to invest [in the pipeline and other resource industries] and to a certain extent I really think that's the nature of this conversation."

West says recent attacks from Conservatives against environmental organizations and the labeling of concerned citizens as "radicals" shows the current government feels threatened by those beginning to think beyond the oil economy.

"To me it’s a sign of desperation and a clinging to maintain the status quo," said West. "The big question that I think we're all going to need to deal with is: what does a different type of economy look like? Canada's economy is very much based around oil at the moment but that can't last forever."

West notes that while the Canadian government appears unconcerned about voices against the project, support is growing. Recently, several First Nations participated in theYinka Dene Alliance (YDA) train journey that ended at the Enbridge AGM in Toronto. The trip raised awareness and protested against the pipeline in a number of cities.

The JRP was slated to hear oral statements until March 2013 and make their recommendation in the fall, but the timeline and review process may soon be changed by aspects of the parliamentary budget bill, C-38.

Trevor Kehoe is a journalist from Calgary, now based in Vancouver.

The Yinka Dene Alliance

Indoor Work Spaces Prove Safer for Sex Workers

Tim McSorley — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:28:17 +0000

Study shows drop in abuse, HIV rates when sex work brought indoors

VANCOUVER—A recently released study by the BC Centre For Excellence in HIV and the University of British Columbia proves what community advocates have been saying for years: safer indoor spaces for sex work save lives.

The study interviewed 39 women living in supported housing projects on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Run by RainCity Housing and Atira, these projects are self-identified women-only (in terms of staff and residents) and include safety measures such as cameras in the buildings, sign-in sheets for guests and harm reduction supplies. Sex workers who live in these buildings are allowed guests, which means that they can bring in their clients.

The women who live in these buildings were largely homeless before moving in, or living in buildings that did not allow guests. This lead to interactions with clients where the workers had very little power or control. “It’s common sense if you think about it,” says long time sex work advocate Trina Ricketts. “Imagine yourself preparing to work outside in the cold, negotiating services and fees in strangers’ cars. Then imagine yourself preparing to work out of your apartment building, which happens to be staffed with caring, vigilant support staff committed to helping you stay safe no matter what.”

The findings are that these projects help empower women to better negotiate safer sex with clients, which is a factor in preventing HIV transmission. “We have previously shown that displacement and lack of safer indoor options for street-based sex workers are directly associated with elevated rates of violence and HIV risk,” says Dr. Kate Shannon, the senior author of the study. Of course, having easy access to healthcare workers with harm reduction supplies also helps.

Workers also reported that being housed inside made them feel safer from police harassment and violence. While many of the workers interviewed for the study were quite weary of police, they found that they felt safer when placed in one of the housing projects.

As one sex worker explains: “On the corner, doing it in the car, I used to be scared all the time, paranoid about cops, scared of getting charged. It is a lot easier now. It is different.”

Less fearful relationships with police as well as access to trained healthcare staff and harm reduction supplies are meeting survival sex workers where they are at. “We have created policies and practices that support women’s choice and ensure their health and safety are protected,” says Amelia Ridgway, Manager of RainCity Housing. “Women have the right to govern their own bodies. We believe that housing is a human right and this is about providing women with the most basic human rights around protection from violence within a harm reduction framework."

This study reinforces the need and effectiveness of safe, indoor sex work spaces which is very encouraging for the sex work community. “Safer sex work spaces support better health and safety, period,” said Dr. Patricia Daly, Chief Medical Health Officer, Vancouver Coastal Health.

Kathleen Cherrington who has organized events such as the International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers says that perhaps more intentional work spaces may be a next logical step. Not everyone wants to bring their work home with them. “Some sex workers have children and need a place to work that isn't from home. So we also need brothels that are for those wanting a place to work that is away from home,” says Cherrington.

The West Coast Cooperative Of Sex Industry Professionals has formulated a business plan which includes a collectively run sex work space where workers can take their dates. This would be a multiple room establishment where folks could pay per use. Their vision is described as similar to a bath house, with showers, towels and safer sex supplies avaialble to both workers and patrons. The hope would be that as patronship increased, costs could be kept low. Unfortunately, this plan was formulated quite some time ago and has not come to fruition due to both a lack of funding (capital) and legality issues.

This study comes on the heels of a legal development that the sex working community sees as encouraging. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that prohibiting bawdy houses is unconstitutional, as it increases the dangers faced by those who are forced to work on the streets. While the Conservative government is currently in the process of challenging this decision, it may very well find its way into the practices of law enforcement in Vancouver.

In the meantime, Ricketts feels that more housing, like the facilities in the study, are sorely needed in Vancouver and that no survival sex workers should go without a home. “In my opinion, being homeless is violence,” she says. “So providing housing is paramount to reducing violence against women.”

Eli Mills is a contributor to the Vancouver Media Co-op.

This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Trina Ricketts

Marchers Vow to Protect Ancient Burial Site

dawn — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:50:26 +0000

Musqueam set up camp at condo site after infant graves desecrated

MARPOLE, VANCOUVER—The Musqueam First Nation has vowed to shut down condo construction to protect a major ancient burial site at the Marpole Midden. Infant graves were unearthed by heavy excavating equipment at the Vancouver location this week.

More than 100 Musqueam and supporters marched to the construction project at 1338 SW Marine on Thursday, May 3. The marchers included representatives from several First Nations. Musqueam are now occupying outside the site and say they will remain until protection for the site is assured.

The move to protect their 4,000-year-old village site come after more burials were dug up by the condo developer. Construction stopped six weeks ago when the developer first disturbed intact burials. Musqueam leaders say promised talks with the developer, the city and the province have gone nowhere.

The Musqueam reportedly offered a swap with developer Century Holdings for nearby land, but to no avail. The Marpole Midden is considered one of the most important in Canada and was named a National Historic Site in 1938.

Union of BC Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip announced that the site will "remain shut down until the province is prepared to come to the table and discuss a resolution to this situation."

Musqueam Chief Ernest Campbell warned "never question our resolve or the resolve of our fellow First Nations, or of any one else for that matter, when it comes to protecting our sacred burial rights."

Musqueam spokesperson Cecilia Point said supporters are welcome to come down and join the protest on the sidewalk or bring a tent and stay.

This article and these images (and more) were originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Musqueam Marchers

Musqueam Marchers II

Hishuk Ish Tsawalk: Everything is One

stephlaw — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:08:04 +0000

Recovering an Indigenous language in Canada

MONTREAL—Kathy Robinson is a language warrior. At the age of 81, she is one of the last two fluent native speakers of Tseshaht (pronounced “tsi-sha-aht”), a language once popularly spoken on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Tseshaht is not the only language indigenous to Canada that is at risk of disappearing.

Of the 50 Indigenous tongues in Canada, most are in danger of extinction. Globally, the last speaker of a language dies every two weeks. There are at least 2,500 endangered languages and dialects destined for extinction in the next 100 years, according to the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.

“This all happened because of residential schools; we’ve almost lost everything,” said Elder Robinson when asked why her language is disappearing. “We’ve pretty well lost our language, except for a few that kept it.”

Elder Robinson said the residential school system played a huge role in diminishing the number of speakers of Native languages because Indigenous children were forced to speak English. Now, Robinson is fighting to keep her Native language alive.

“I’d just like to leave behind what I know, so the next generation will know this,” said Robinson, who is a mother of 10 daughters.

The Tseshaht people are one of 14 Nations that make up the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council.

Robinson has devoted the last 33 years of her life to creating language materials for the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations. Learning from her elders, she developed the foundations of the Tseshaht curriculum that is still used at the local Tseshaht community school. The school is called Haahuupayak, which means “a tool (yak) for teaching with love (haa huu pa)."

Over the decades, Robinson has revived dances, songs and stories for her community's children that are based on her early memories and on ethnographic interviews found in linguist Edward Sapir’s notes, which she has spent 15 years translating and analyzing.

Two of her daughters, Jessica Stephens and Katherine Robinson, are also involved in language revitalization. Jessica is a member of he First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council (FPHLCC), which developed FirstVoices.com, an online language documentation and education resource.

“[My mother] brought along all her old memories to the children and teachers,” Stephens explains. Her mother started by translating simple objects from English to Nuu-chah-nulth. She then got excited about puppets, which led to translating all the English nursery rhymes, colours, numbers, animals and “everything on earth” into her language.

“There wasn’t any real money back then for a First Nations curriculum. My mother and her co-worker worked long, hard and cold hours to get this done,” Stephens said. “They worked for peanuts but their commitment and passion forged them on.”

Today, First Nations languages are taking on new forms. The FirstVoices team in British Columbia, of which Elder Robinson’s daughter Katherine is part, provides online tools to enable First Nations communities to preserve their Indigenous languages in digital form. New media tools now provide a new pathway for transmitting and conserving oral cultures threatened by extinction.

Soon First Nations people will be able to send text messages to each other in Indigenous languages—thanks to an innovative mobile application that FirstVoices will launch on April 22. It will be available in BC’s 34 languages, which include 60 dialects.

The new texting application, called FirstVoices Chat, is generating a huge buzz among First Nations youth.

“Access to the applications on mobile devices has really sparked an interest in youth to get involved with language. They are going to be able to text everyday in their own language,” said Peter Brand, FirstVoices Co-ordinator.

FirstVoices Chat is one of several new mobile apps that provide multimedia First Nations dictionaries and phrase collections with audio recordings, images and video. The apps are a mobile extension of language collections archived by First Nations communities at FirstVoices.com. They incorporate touch-screen keyboards that use the unique characters for each of the 34 Indigenous languages of BC, as well as an English keyboard.

FirstVoices also runs a language program called The Language Tutor, which has been implemented in several schools in BC. The software offers computer-based language learning courses that are tailored for specific First Nations cultures. Parents have used it in collaboration with local teachers to create successful language immersion environments in several communities.

"It's very exciting to see the new generation of language champions emerging right in front of us," said Peter Brand.

Jessica Stephens said her mother recognizes how essential computers are for revitalizing their language and developing new materials, but that taking computer courses brought up a lot of her mother’s fears from her experience in residential school.

“Her fear was up and she was resistant, but she had to go if she wanted her language to have a chance,” Stephens said. “So she overcame her fear and learned.”

“She liked it and was confused by it, but she kept typing and today she is an efficient computer geek,” Stephens added. “My mom is always on the computer translating the stories. She remembers the people who she is translating. She knows them and has talked to them so it is like she is the link. She loves, absolutely loves translating their notes.”

Elder Robinson is celebrated in her community for having contributed so much of her energy to create a Tseshaht dictionary, books of traditional mythology, collections of song lyrics and children’s stories.

Michael Kelly, a member of the Elders Team from the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, shares Robinson’s belief that residential schools and other historic assimilatory practices are the root cause of the demise of many Indigenous languages.

“When I came back from six years at residential school, I was like a stranger in my own family,” Kelly said.

For Kelly, six years was long enough to lose everything he once had.

“I used to be able to understand our language as a child,” he said. “When my mother died, when I was nine years old, I went to residential school and I was forbidden to speak it; I was a heathen if I spoke it.”

Kelly, along with 22 other elders from different communities in BC, are currently taking part in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s events scheduled in First Nations communities throughout 2012.

Kelly, in an interview in the city of Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, affirmed that the first step towards Indigenous language revitalization in Canada is the healing among the elders who survived residential schools.

“They come in with a lot of anger and guilt,” said Kelly of many First Nations elders. “'Why did I let this happen to me when I was so young?' They’ll blame themselves, and the priests and brothers and prefects, who taught us how to be guilty and think we are not worth anything, and that we are nothing more than drunken Indians.”

But that anger and guilt might be somewhat relieved for those sharing their stories—often for the first time—and by having their voices heard and their experiences validated, Kelly said.

“The pain does not go away,” said Kelly. “The healing is really important so they don’t have to walk around with their heads hanging down, not trusting people, afraid of who they are.”

Stephens affirmed that although healing is important for the elders, it is not an easy process.

“Spiritual healing can only take place when the elders are ready for it. It is a romantic thought that we open this healing door and they all walk in. Life is not like that. Some will never walk in, others will peek in, while still others will take a quick glance, feel too much fear, pain and shame and run far away. The severely wounded can’t even go near the door. Some people wish that we could just heal ourselves quickly and maybe it would go away and they wouldn’t have to hear it again.”

Anna Luisa Daigneault is an anthropologist and language activist from Montreal. She currently works for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in the US and is involved with several language revitalization projects in Peru, Paraguay and Chile.

Kathy Robinson

"Stand With Us to Fight"

Tim McSorley — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:42:20 +0000

Hundreds protest Enbridge pipeline and oil tankers at Heiltsuk-led rally

VANCOUVER—Hundreds of people from First Nations, environmental and community organizations, and others from Vancouver and beyond, rallied against Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline and coastal oil supertanker traffic earlier today, filling the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds.

A march led by the Heiltsuk Nation of the Central Coast departed from the Coastal First Nations office at Granville and Hastings Streets and wound its way through the downtown business district to join another group waiting at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The rally marked the 23rd anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, which spilled hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil on March 24, 1989.

"Only seven percent of that oil was cleaned up," said Coastal First Nations Executive Director Art Sterritt of the Exxon Valdez spill. "Our well-being as First Nations is dependent on our lands, on our waters.

“Our people, the Heiltsuk people, have always had a position: No oil tankers on the coast! That position has never changed,” Heiltsuk elder Edwin Newman said, addressing the rally. “We are pleading with our coastal neighbours to stand with us to fight this issue.”

“When we stand together, we are a powerful people,” added Newman, whose call for unity was echoed by speaker after speaker.

"We are Canada's energy union and we stand with you on this issue," Jim Britton, Western Region Vice President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers' Union (CEP) told the crowd. "We do not support Enbridge. We do not support Northern Gateway...This isn't just about oil. This is about us. This is about our communities."

If built, the proposed 1,200-kilometre Northern Gateway oil pipeline would transport a half-million barrels of tar sands bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat, BC. The proposed twin pipelines' 30-metre-wide right-of-way would cross hundreds of rivers, streams and watersheds along its route through numerous unceded Indigenous territories. The crude oil would then be transported on massive oil tankers through delicate coastal ecosystems and Indigenous territories and finally across the Pacific to Asian markets.

"The world that we have lived in for the past 10,000 years is shifting around us," Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, an organization dedicated to building a global movement against climate change, told the rally, situating the coastal struggle against pipelines and tankers within the global climate justice movement. "The planet is starting to become unglued because we are raising the temperature."

"We know, we absolutely know that this fight is going to completely eclipse the [fight for] Clayoquot Sound," Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs said. "We know that this fight is going to intensify."

While the struggle against Northern Gateway has garnered massive support and international attention, it is not the only pipeline project facing opposition in the province. Grassroots Wet'suwet'en community activists have been resisting the proposed Pacific Trails natural gas pipeline that would connect to a new Liquefied Natural Gas port on the Central Coast. The project would traverse the unceded lands of many of the same First Nations opposing the Enbridge project. In its case, however, the elected leadership of several First Nations along the route are supporting the Pacific Trails project.

Another lesser-known pipeline project already runs through the lower mainland. The Kinder Morgan oil pipeline brings tar sands crude across the Rockies along its Trans Mountain pipeline to terminals in both Burnaby and Washington State. Only two months ago there was a spill in Abbotsford, BC, following a major oil spill at the Burnaby terminal site in 2007.

Kinder Morgan is expected to announce its expansion plans for the pipeline, according to Ben West, Healthy Communities Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. The company is reportedly looking to increase the quantity of crude transported from 300,000 barrels per day to 600,000 or 700,000.

"Kinder Morgan has been trying to do this as quietly as possible," West told the rally. "We have to stand together to say no to all these projects!"

As the rally wound down after two hours in the rain, the loudest expressions of support were heard for 11-year-old Sliammon First Nation singer-songwriter Ta'Kaiya Blaney. She recalled going to the Enbridge office in Vancouver one year ago to express her opinion about the Northern Gateway pipeline.

"I was escorted out and I was told that if I didn't leave I would be charged for trespassing," Blaney recounted to the ralliers, who showed their support with enthusiastic cheers.

Before performing her song "Shallow Waters," Blaney told the hundreds gathered on the Monday afternoon of the message found in the song: "If we do nothing it will all be gone."

Sandra Cuffe is a writer and aspiring janitor currently living in Vancouver.

This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca

Heiltsuk Nation elder Edwin Newma

Rally against pipelines at Vancouver Art Gallery

Wiebo’s Final Battle

Tim McSorley — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:33:18 +0000

HYTHE, AB—It’s not if, but when. Eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig is preparing for death. With his weight now under 150 pounds, he predicts he’ll be gone in just weeks, a victim of cancer of the esophagus. Ludwig has battled the disease for the past year.

The Dutch-born patriarch of a Christian clan “living off the land” in Alberta’s Peace River country is in palliative care.

Ludwig, who turned 70 in December, takes pain medication to get through the night. “I’m trying to stay off pain killers as much as possible,” he reveals. To reduce their father’s pain, Charity, Salome and Mamie ‘Junior’ apply medical herbs wrapped in heated cloths to his chest and legs, now noticeably thin.

Ludwig’s sons recently built him a sauna. Their hope is that the wet heat will help him.

In January, surgeons in Grande Prairie placed a stent in Ludwig’s throat so he could swallow. Two weeks ago, Ludwig was rushed to hospital to have the stent lengthened after food became lodged in his throat.

For decades, Ludwig has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of the oil and gas industry,as evidenced by Toronto filmmaker David York’s 2011 National Film Board documentary, Wiebo’s War.

Instead of battling energy companies, Ludwig plans to spend his final days with his family. “I feel there’s a time when you have to sign off,” he says, “you have to stop at some point.”

Ludwig’s eyes still penetrate, but he sounds exhausted.

Reverend Ludwig says he’s looking forward to ‘crossing over.’ “[Death] doesn’t bother me,” he says. “It is apparent to everyone there is an afterlife, even though we repress that in our anxieties. I am eager for redemption, eager to see what’s there. I just hope I die without too much pain …”

“I’m quite grateful about my life, in many ways a concentrated series of battles. I enjoyed the battles. They were difficult times, but meaningful. I was seldom bored, put it that way.”

Ludwig, described by his many foes as an eco-terrorist, says, “I have been somewhat persistent. I guess that’s been my one quality that’s been admired, not to give in and compromise with the BS … not to complain all day long either but to work at something that is commendable, a solution to some of our problems, hopefully.”

A carpenter and drywaller by trade, last month Ludwig completed his final project: his coffin. The simple wooden casket now rests on two metal stands in one of the modern chalet-type homes, part of a sprawling complex of industrial shops and barns known as Trickle Creek Farm.

His casket will be placed in a concrete crypt, above ground, in woods close by.

The outspoken critic of the oil and gas industry initially joked the government may go after him if he goes underground, then rationalizes why the crypt should be above ground: “in case we have to move again.”

“It’s not normal for people to build their own coffin,” I offered. Ludwig shot back, “What is normal out there, tell me?”

According to family members, their leader’s funeral will be a private affair, not open to the public or reporters. Ludwig says he wants his people to ‘retreat’ for a while after his death and “not engage much with the public.” “Not so much to mourn my dying,” he says, “but to give them some time to work their way through it.”

“I’m glad this is a bit of a process,” he offers. “I can spend time saying goodbye to the family and give them some direction on different issues. Everybody has a chance to face it…rather than ‘boom, he’s gone.’ We’ve had some beautiful conversations about the reality of us having to give up mortality,” he adds.

Ludwig spends a lot of time resting. He’s either in bed, lying on the couch or sitting in a recliner chair near a wood-burning stove. He says he’ll die at his log cabin, not in a hospital.

When he’s up to it, Ludwig and his wife of 43-years, Mamie, walk arm-in-arm on paths in the forest.

Ludwig reflected on his move to northwestern Alberta in the mid-1980s. “Many people thought I was nuts taking a family out here in the boondocks,” he says. “It wasn’t easy, but I sensed it was worth it. The alternatives looked disastrous … tasted them myself as a young man.”

“I found in the gospel a sense of realism,” he says, steering the topic to religion.

“I know people fuss with that, but I found the gospel more realistic than anything else. Today it’s almost frightening to say you’re a Christian because there’s so much bulls–t attached to it, in the public’s mind. Fortunately, I’ve had some very beautiful insights into the Word of God.”

The Trickle Creek Farm, home to nearly 60 people, many of them children and teenagers, is centerpiece of a 324-hectare parcel of land northwest of Hythe.

“I’ve seen men and women here really taking hold of this vision. They’ve come through. Many talks, many plans … they’ve come to see the beauty of withdrawing from all the riff-raff the world wants you to chase. They’ve pursued something quite steadily that has some character; has some sense again when it comes to practical issues, like raising your own food. That is almost critical.”

Son Josh Ludwig estimates they’re nearly 80 percent self-sufficient. With the addition of a windmill and solar panels, residents can now generate their own power. A large computer-controlled boiler creates heat for the houses.

As it turned out, the farm was smack in the middle of a large oil and gas field.

The people of Trickle Creek discovered that more than water trickled through their property. Sour gas leaks were followed by allegations of poisoned water, stillbirths and dead animals. “We didn’t want to be known for being environmentalists,” Ludwig says.

“We didn’t want to piss around with all their games. We wanted a place to live where they wouldn’t be puking on us … just let us be and allow us to live our lives.”

The Ludwigs complained to the authorities about the toxic leaks. After police did nothing, they say, they took matters into their own hands. Wiebo Ludwig ended up eating prison food for a year-and-a-half after an Edmonton judge found him guilty of using explosives to destroy and vandalize oilfield equipment.

“This started with the industry ‘fumigating‘ us,” Ludwig says of the conflict that vaulted him to national media attention. “How can you vilify people who object to that, and holler to authorities who don’t do anything to help them?”

It’s surprising perhaps, but Wiebo Ludwig does not blame his terminal disease on sour gas emissions. “It’s often hard to trace,” he says of his esophageal cancer, “because it’s everywhere — polluting waters, dirt and food. The oil and gas industry certainly caused a lot of trouble — including cancerous troubles — but who’s to know where we got cancer from?”

The public remains angry about the death of 16-year-old Karman Willis, a local shot in June 1999 while a passenger in a pick-up truck tearing around Trickle Creek in the middle of the night. According to police, the bullet that struck the teen ricocheted off the frame of the truck. Officers couldn’t find the shooter or his or her weapon.

People at Trickle Creek say the intruders sped around, doing doughnuts and throwing empty beer cans out the window. They point out that one of the trucks came to within a meter of running down four girls sleeping in a tent. One described it as “sheer terror” as a pick-up roared by them in the dark.

No one was charged with the shooting. Neither was anyone charged with trespassing at night, causing a disturbance or impaired or dangerous driving.

In January 2010, the RCMP swooped down on Trickle Creek, telling reporters that Wiebo Ludwig was responsible for pipeline bombings in the Tom’s Lake, BC area. Ludwig was held for a day but never charged.

Ludwig shared his thoughts about the news media. “I see the media as much the same shape as the public is in,” he offers. “Despite all of their writings and their efforts to tell us the truth, they can’t do it … they’re caught in a net of all kinds of pressures. The media is about making money and they’re scrambling to keep some clout, sacrificing all kinds of principles.”

In what may be his final advice to the oil and gas industry, Ludwig says, “get rid of this stuff and replace it as soon as possible with alternatives, and stop being so stubborn and stupid about it. My advice is, why don’t you just go for it? — do the right thing.”

“You can tell the oil and gas industry,” Ludwig says, “we knew we were right all along,” adding, “but I’ve come to see they also knew that.”

“In the end,” the reverend predicts, “good will win out over evil.”

Who takes over after Wiebo Ludwig is gone? Ludwig reveals that one of his younger sons—he refused to provide a name—has already been chosen to take the reins. “He has a good rapport with the next generation,” Ludwig says. “He has shown wonderful qualities and an excellent commitment.”

On his hope for society, Ludwig doesn’t pull any punches. “I hope it ends very soon,” he says. “I yearn for the age to come … I have for many years. I think society is definitely on a suicidal trip.” “It’s been prophesied,” he says, “the end of times are clearly with us today. Just when it all ends, is another question …”

“It’s gone that wild out there. Our social life is in shambles … family, marital … all these things are just busted up. Individualism has wrecked us terribly, made us lonely and isolated.”

Richard Boonstra, Ludwig’s right-hand man, says he’s inspired by how his old friend is handling death. “We’ve made death such a terrible thing in our society,” he says. “We’re scared to death of it, so to speak,” adding, “death has lost its sting, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a sadness around it.”

The last word goes to the dying eco-activist: “I feel very reconciled,” Ludwig says.

“My life has had some sordid chapters, especially my youthful life. But I feel a peace with the Lord and with man in terms of having dealt with those things in my soul, my spirit.”

“I’m not a person who has had small prayers,” Ludwig concludes. “I’ve asked for major things to change my life and the lives of those I’m with. I’m not disappointed.”

This article was originally published by the Vegreville Observer.

Journalist Byron Christopher, best known for his award-winning investigative journalism with CBC, is one of the only journalist Ludwig would speak to in his final days. Christopher is completing a book on Richard Lee McNair based on personal interviews and letters from the US fugitive who escaped several prisons over a period of years before being captured in Canada.

Wiebo Ludwig and Maime

Wiebo's coffin

Peace Region Boom

Miles — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:22:50 +0000

Growth in northern town leaves residents feeling the pinch

WINNIPEG—Home to 12,000 permanent residents, Dawson Creek, BC, is surrounded by productive agricultural land and is known as the place where the Alaska Highway begins. Located 600 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, Dawson Creek has seen many cycles of “boom and bust” since the Second World War. During the war, this town was home to a US Army base that built a highway from Dawson Creek to Delta Junction, Alaska—a distance of 2,700 kilometres through the bush—over the span of only eight months.

But this small town, located in the South Peace region of northern BC, has become a stage for controversy, as natural gas development continues to pump millions of dollars into the local economy, despite concerns that some people feel left behind. Currently, the community is experiencing likely the largest “boom” period in the town’s history.

“The development in our area has helped add stability to our economy,” says Mayor Mike Bernier in an email. Bernier has professional history in the natural gas industry, having moved to Dawson Creek in 1993 to work for Pacific Northern Gas. He has been mayor of Dawson Creek since 2008.

“We have seen many companies choose to move to Dawson Creek to capitalize on the opportunities," he says. "Our developers are building as fast as they can to keep up with the demand.”

But in the town, which has been recognized provincially for its progressive municipal planning, opinions remain divided regarding the pace of development, especially when the economic driver is the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” to get at shale gas reserves.

The area was put on high alert in 2008 and 2009 when several EnCana gas wells were bombed in protest. While RCMP conducted a massive investigation, including an intensive search of convicted oil and gas “saboteur” Wiebo Ludwig’s nearby property, so far no charges have been laid in the case. A $1 million reward has been offered.

Ludwig has been an outspoken critic of oil and gas development in the area since the 1990s, when his family, and his livestock, began to experience negative health impacts. Ludwig claimed these impacts—which included rashes, headaches, nausea and still-births—were a result of living in close proximity to a natural gas flare. He was convicted in 2000 of five charges related to industrial sabotage of oil and gas wells in the area surrounding Hythe, Alberta, a 30 minute drive from Dawson Creek. Ludwig served two-thirds of his 28-month sentence before being released in 2001. In 2011, Ludwig was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

“For people living in outlying areas with gas batteries in their backyards and stuff, they don’t like it one bit,” says Andrew Triebel, a local tattoo artist. “But at the same time, these [companies] are paying for our public programs. We just have to face the fact that this world is reliant on fossil fuel and this part of the country is rich in it, but there’s got to be a happy medium between corporate profits and ruining our resources forever.”

Marilyn Belak, a former city councilor from 2002 to 2011, and resident of Dawson Creek since the 1970s, says the city’s “greatest challenge is the ‘hurry-hurry’ traditional character of the oil and gas industry.” During Belak’s time on council, Dawson Creek was recognized as a provincial leader in developing and implementing municipal sustainability policy.

“The general industry ethos is to hurry in,” says Belak. “Everything is hurry up and drill and stockpile and pipe. The Oil and Gas Commission services the industry needs above all and the environment and public interests are not addressed in any meaningful and coordinated way.”

Despite opposition from some residents, natural gas development shows no signs of cooling anytime soon. Recently, PetroChina made a billion-dollar investment in Royal Dutch Shell’s massive Groundbirch shale gas project just north of Dawson Creek, making PetroChina a 20 per cent shareholder in the project. And in a recently released report, BC’s Ministry of Energy and Mines detailed how natural gas production—the bulk of which is produced in northeastern BC—could almost triple over the next decade, going from 1.1 trillion cubic feet annually to three trillion cubic feet by 2020.

“With demand growing quickly, prices in Asia are up to four times [what] they are in North America,” wrote Rich Coleman, Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister Responsible for Housing, in the introduction to the report. “BC is ideally positioned to compete for a share of that lucrative market.”

Even though the demand is growing, particularly from Asian countries, full exploitation of the resource is still dependent on variables that are not yet in place. Three major liquid natural gas (LNG) plants in Kitimat, BC, are in the proposal stage. These plants would prepare natural gas from northeastern BC for transport via tanker to markets in Asia. These LNG plants, and any pipeline network needed to transport gas from the Peace Region to the northwest coast, have yet to pass environmental review.

Committing long-term to Asian markets is dangerous for Canada’s long-term energy security, argues veteran geoscientist David Hughes.

“Canada has had no energy strategy since the demise of the National Energy Program (NEP) in the mid-1980s other than ‘let the markets rule,’” Hughes wrote in a recent paper on the subject. “As a result, short-term corporate needs for profit and growth rule the day, often at the expense of the longer-term energy and environmental needs of Canadians.”

Blair Lekstrom, MLA for the South Peace region and former mayor of Dawson Creek from 1996 to 2001, believes that the pace of development in the Peace region is sustainable over the long term. While Lekstrom has had his ups and downs with the provincial Liberal party—at one point he resigned his cabinet position over opposition to the provincial HST—he is currently the minister for transportation and infrastructure.

“The natural gas industry is extremely important to the northeast part of British Columbia, as well as the entire province,” he told The Dominion via email. “It is the single largest contributor to the economy of BC and creates thousands of jobs for families of our region.”

But not every worker coming to the region is necessarily bringing a family in tow, and a migrant workforce has created problems of its own.

The influx of hundreds of workers has created a surge in demand for the hospitality industry in Dawson Creek, and has subsequently driven the cost of housing for permanent residents skyward. For a standard, three-bedroom, 1000-square-foot, 30-year-old house, Blaine Nicholson, a real estate agent in Dawson Creek since 1978, estimates prices to be between $200,000 and $250,000, prices comparable to urban centres like Edmonton.

“That’s kind of your starter home,” Nicholson says. “If you wanted to get into something nicer you could get into a brand new home, in a new subdivision, three-bedroom, 1200 square feet, full basement, unfinished...they’re starting at $360,000.”

Despite the negative effect of increased housing prices, Bernier and others continue to argue that these developments are good for the town.

“There have been five new hotels built, new apartment buildings, and lots of residential development,” says Bernier. “The past three years have been the best in our city’s history for private investment.”

Nicholson confirms Bernier’s position.

“It’s never been this busy before,” he told The Dominion. “Most of the hotels in town are operating at 95 per cent occupancy right now, and the only reason they’re not 100 per cent is because of turn-over. Oil patch guys are getting their ‘living out’ allowances, so they’re living out of hotels, paying between $100 a night and $175 a night, and they’re staying in for weeks or months at a time.”

According to a recent article in the Vancouver Province, the increased demands on the hospitality industry has led to a shortage of kitchen and cleaning staff for some hotels and restaurants. The same article says hotels have applied to employ temporary foreign workers through the federal government. If their applications are approved, it would allow them to access temporary labour at lower wages than they would have to pay for local labour. The minimum wage in BC is $9.50 per hour.

With production from gas wells expected to continue increasing over the next ten years, many long-term residents are beginning to feel as though they are lost within their home community.

“It used to be you could go out and anyone you saw, you either knew them or you knew their face, had seen them somewhere before,” reflects Jason Reinitz, a lifelong area resident. “Now it’s just becoming faceless...People appreciate the money it’s bringing in and all. But, and I’ve heard this from a lot of people, it’s not the same place anymore.”

Sheldon Birnie is a writer, editor and song & dance man living in Winnipeg.

Dawson Creek